Preface
The ship of fools
I like to explain this piece german history as good as i can.
I guess not many could interprete the pictures as well as a swiss with german roots.
My parents are both germans and i'm born in the very narrow valley of Glarus in Switzerland.
To able to read the gothic lettering fluid is advantage which i inherted one could say.
The text is is very diffucult to understand from my pow maybe more difficult as i would read the origanal from around 1500.
Because the swiss german idiom is still related to the old spoken german and used in the daily life.
The interest which i have in it i guess gets obvious by my name, if someone is named Gernot he very soon likes to know the source and meaning of his name and everything which is related to that. My name has course no relation to this book but the german language is of course of interest especially our swiss idiom.
The problem is which also is also remarked in the preface to this reissue, that a lot has been lost and a lot has been changed depending on how the sense of the verses was interpreted in their time until and including the reissue.
I have read that this is some of the corner stones to german humanism, true is the woodcuttings it was made shortly before reformation.
One should not forget to see this in consens of time formost the antisemitism in verses, but explicit in the verses.
Of course it also depicts the islam as an invasor who brings bad habits to europe, but exactly this reflects time.
The woodcuttings itself point never directly on this, it points on the habist respectivelly bad habits of the upper class, the upcoming plutocracy of the patricians.
Which is from my pov view the most remarkable in this "book" it's titled "Das Narrenschiff" a satire about our society which is timeless.
Personlly i'm convinced this was never meant as book as we see it here, this is from my point of view a "Schnitzelbank" a flip chart and while show the flip chart to the public you "sing" verses. They don't have to rhyme at all sake but they have to make reason.
A carneval tradition which is still alive in the alemannic part of Switzerland, Germany and Austria and by a closer look at it even the carneval banquet in Köln has it's root in this tradition i guess, at least that what has get obvious to me. I found the book because i was looking for the roots of the term "Vaganten".
To make a long story short, the tradition was in the reigning class that only the oldest son took the herit. Younger sons has been sent to a monastery to study.
Of course these was no monks and left as young men. The consequnces of this would be material enough for 1000 year long netflix series.
From on the year 500 on or so far reach our documents back i have to say the practice is obviousely older, such young men flooded europe.
All of these students head a very good education the less had a job, some of them was clever some other thought it s their duty to share their knowledge with the common folks perhaps as method to fight the very special clever ones ;)
Based on this it is to see as an entertainment and that's the reason why this for sure was meant once as flip chart which teaches moral to the common folks who couldn't read. But of course in this mirror of the society even the church will be tared and feathered, it is very religuos but it clearly points already towards reformation.
Sure it is to see as a tradition which has already existed before the woodcuttings was made even they are already to see as documentation.
For the simple reason that if you like to keep such a tradition alive you need a book just that i assume such will have been different to what we see.
I see it also as a sort of story because some are persons of the play you can recognize, in other terms actors and the actors are all the many fools in this world.
Many i said pardon everyone is a fool and i'm the biggest fool of all,
i have learned reading and writing and calculating like Adam Riese,
but you don't have to think i am smarter then you.
Look all the many books in the shelf yet i have read just a single one
Instead to study the books i went to the tavern
Even if i have read one i forgot what i have read with the next one.
But even if i know nothing at least in know
from the young you can't learn only from the old.
This is already enough to describe the first woodcutting "Der Büchernarr" (page 36, respectively 1) the bibliofool and i guess already this opening tells a lot.
The verses in the book are far to long and consist of something i would call "Brimborium" a lot of references to the bible but little sense, except of the introducing verses and maybe sometimes mixed in the brimborium. I guess it is allowed to see this brimborium as a covering of the sense often, which again makes sense how this material was handed around and has grown over this long timespan.
The woodcuttings
I won't explain all, this would fill a new book but i will pick some which are as i guess timeless.
I hope i am able to transpose the sense in the recent time and i hope my english is well enough for this.
Each woodcutting has a "modern" describtion beyond but sometimes this description fails completely from my point of view.
In all they are completely out of date and can only be seen mostly in consense to the verses.
I guess the cover of the woodcut collection (page 28) is rather to see as second verse because the above one could continued then with:
Follow me you fools to Narretania and i will lead the wagon
everyone is present here servant, maid, farmer and his wife
the old grey mother, the young student and even a little child
soon we will sail to Narretania where milk and honey flows
From now on you can pick one you like but the moneyfool is the most repeating motive in this play.
But the biggest fool of all is of the one who guesses he's not aboard the ship fools - no question.
Page 4 "Der Narr im Rath" which i guess is to translate with foolish advice and not Rath in sense of council even if this tangents the council as well as a judge.
It's a warning to judge fair though you will be judged fair.
The sense of image on the woodcutting is even to me unknown, but this time the verses point undoubtly on this.
Ths warning is meant rather for the audience and especially for the speaker since the material in this book is explosive seen in consens of the time the woodcuttings was made.
An interesting one i found of course page 7 "Der Modenarr" the fashionfool since i am eductated as fabrics technician specialised to printing fabrics and i am closer to the fashion geekery with my profession as one could like, the factory i made my education in produced (and produces still) alta moda or in french haute couture.
Also the stupid relation to the jews as if they would be responsible for this geekery fashion exists i guees since adam and eve - no not because they was naked because we like to decorate us.
But everything which was related at this time to fashion was imported, the turks stood in front of vienna and the jews had since long the fabrics production and trading in control.
But even if that was centuries later this is how my master described it "Heberlein" former a large fabrics factory in Wattwil CH "was a Jew and started as ragpicker because he wasn't allowed to any other work an he (his family) built out of that an industry".
Is there anything more needed to say?
It is one thing to be dressed good but like in my situation to invest a lot of hours of work into something which is weared a single occasion is simply said Narretei fooling.
And this by all means not limited to jews and only in relation to them because of the long very long tradition in trading with fabrics which i guess reaches back to the persian empire.
However i had to laugh whe i've read "the fit horns on their head and look like..." and depending on how hard you like to hurt from cow over satyr to satan :)
It is to remark that everything which shows just a tiny bit of the female body is rated as immoral, already a slight lifting of a skirt.
Such really is to see in consens of the time, but on the other hand it would be still a topic how much femal sexual attraction can a man stand?
That is really a question we must ask since even if the Women still don't know they still sexualize themself the most, that is no excuse, but honestly a lot in womens fashion uses the most simple subversive sexual signs which mean literally "f*** me" if you ask an artist or craftsman like me, maybe someone else won't see this.
Such my eyes see even in things today which are meant for children that is something which frightens me, the methodical abuse of subversive sexuality.
And it is like all today methodical likewise we in chemistry no longer wait for the lucky chance it is planned the principles are known since long.
That is the link to the present.
All guilds will be target here especially the guilds as what they are:
they deceive each other and tap each other on the shoulder how clever they are and offer a bad craft for a usury ....
Stop
am i talking about 16th century or about 21th? i guess i'm in a time warp of some sort :)
The upper class is fat, fat, lazy, bored of life in one word decadent and guilds as well as farmers have getting richer as their lords, far richer the guilds even.
But also wealthy farmers are meant and again the fashion is target and how shameful that is.
But even the poor have to lose feathers and the problematic is stll the same that you can't simply trust someone just because he is poor even if it is godly to be poor.
Gangs of looting "poor" was as regular as today.
But this was cause of what?
"...wir haben ein Migrationsproblem..." bla bla bla
we have a migration problem?
I guess in the 16th century they had no migration problem the problem was the decadence on one side and the poverty on the other
That is the problem for the looting gangs (you decadent fools - pardon i do mean not you dear reader-fool).
...I must be still into this strange time warp...
On page 9 of the book you can see me
The old fool
Page 11 is a very difficult topic today since their is no reason to chastise your children, or should i have beaten my daughter in reserve?
It's such a bullshit and it's a shame that even in Switzerland sects still propagate it and the drag their children around to tell how good it is to be chastised.
And i get for once more nausea :(
An eye catcher is certainly page 27 "Von Buhlschaft" to woo which shows a blind cupido who shoots the arrows for "venus" who clearly is to see as youth and beauty while the dead waits behind her and greets you, the picture has a very clear message which appears repetive and that is not to sell your self not for gold but neither for youth or beauty or else you lose all - else you will die and won't have none of all that, at least that's how i understand it. Her servant the cupido shoots blind means simply he hits totally random, it can reach anyone which gets also very obvious by the monk who is tied to her like the other two fools you see here.
Page 48 are the above metioned guilds noteworthy is maybe that this woodcutting has no title resp. i assume it was not desireable (caugh).
Quite many boats and many fools the guilds have hard to count them all.
As i already pointed out the "author" complains abut leaking sense for duty, cheating and that each and everyone likes to be master without to be trained.
And since it is now 0900 i have to end this